Academy at the Lakes Inc looks durable. Reserves cover 7 months of operating expense, a thin runway. Revenue is 87% tuition-dependent (peer median 86%), concentrated but in line with most independent day schools. Staff compensation runs 73% of expenses, generous relative to peers. Net assets are growing 15.2%/yr over three years; the cushion is being built, not drawn. NACUBO Composite Financial Index: 7.3 / 10, strong.
Academy at the Lakes Inc reported $13.8M in revenue against $11.7M in expenses in fiscal year 2023, the most recent filing on record. Net assets stood at $6.9M — about 0.59x annual operating expense.
Operating margin landed at 15.5%, with 87.0% of revenue coming from tuition. Among same-size peers, that puts Academy at the Lakes Inc at the p80 on operating margin.
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Why “revenue scale” and not “endowment per student”: independent-school 990s don’t carry per-school enrollment, and NCES PSS coverage is partial, so we cannot divide endowment by a verified student count for every school. The bar above is each school’s latest reported total revenue. True endowment-per-student is scheduled for v1.1+ once Schedule D Part V parsing lands.
Peers are scored by similarity along three equal-weighted dimensions: size cohort (Form 990 employee count + max-revenue tier, a proxy for student enrollment, which the 990 does not carry), geographic region (eight-region grouping), and association overlap (NAIS, NBOA, regional councils). We rank the top 20 nearest peers and chart the first 12 by latest reported revenue. Values are the school’s most recently filed total revenue on IRS Form 990.